Miniaturization and decreasing feature size is a fact of life in the electronics industry. The relentless demand for reduced size continues to drive every facet of the packaging business. However, advances in board-to-board interconnections and board-to-flex interconnections have not kept pace with the advances in the semiconductor industry, and are lagging behind the race for higher and higher interconnect densities. Interconnect system manufacturers have been forced to decrease the pitch and size of leads, thus compromising manufacturability and reliability. Consequently, input/output (I/O) counts for zero-insertion force (ZIF) and low-insertion force (LIF) connectors have come to a standstill. These types of connectors provide electrical contact by bringing together two components under very low force, then pressing them together in a z-axis direction. Chip-scale technology demands interconnects of 200-400 I/O today, and 1500 I/O per in.sup.2 will soon be needed. Conventional ZIF and LIF connector size is limited by tolerances of the molding process. For example, the molded body of very large high I/O count ZIF connector tends to warp, leading to non-coplanar leads. One solution to this problem is to decrease pitch and size, but this compromises manufacturability and reliability. While this solves a stress problem in the assembly, it still has a rigid connector on a PCB and requires additional parts. Further, flexible circuits don't lend themselves well to automated assembly. The advantages accrued by the flexibility of the film also work to one's disadvantage, because the flexibility of the film makes it hard to handle with robotics. The ongoing activity in the field of PCB interconnection is a testament to the importance and need for a robust, mechanically compliant, automatable interconnect system. Clearly, today's conventional approach of linear connectors that utilize a single side of the printed circuit board (PCB) or flexible circuit will not meet the need.